Category Archives: Homebrewing

Lately, I have been quite busy…watering my garden. We are not getting a lot of rain this year, so I am out with the hose, making sure my hops are well hydrated. Since I water so much, the cucumbers have been going like mad. I have a son who loves raw cucumbers, but he can’t keep up. So, let’s try canning for the first time. Let’s try pickles for the first time. Let’s make sure we include homegrown hops and homebrew in the brine.

So I started to research to find a recipe that fulfilled a few things for me:

So, a few months back I got together with a few fraternity brothers for a night of brewing and tasting. It is always great to get together with some great guys, taste some great beers, and see how others run their brew processes. The first brotherhood brew was at my house, when I made Commandant Pliny. This time, we went to Bill’s house. Bill and Jeff were brewing that night, both are brewers for Quiet Storm Brewing Co.

Well, the school year is done. This teacher, brewer, father gets to get caught up. Two weeks ago, I threw together a new beer. I didn’t realize that time had gotten that far away from me. Carpe Citravesa was born. Let’s look a bit at the beer and the name!

Well, yesterday was a first for me. I harvested my first yeast. I did a transfer of my wort from the primary to the secondary for the Commandant Pliny, a Pliny the Elder clone. When I did this, I also dry hopped it for the first time to get it closer to bottling. A few things to see here – there a HUGE amount of trub at the bottom due to all that hops. Unfortunately I will not get a full batch due to this.

I also harvested my first yeast ever. I watched a lot of videos and read articles to get myself ready. Here is the process:

So today bottled my first attempt at my Cookies and Cream Stout homebrew. Ringing in at 5.6%, it is a little more than a session stout. It bottled up at a nice rich dark color. There is a strong chocolate smell and taste for the “cookie”. I am hoping the “cream”, vanilla beans soaked in a little whiskey, comes through after carbonation and chilling.

Remember, I was tasked to make this for the Making Dad Show. In order to keep the title of “Official Brewmaster”, I gotta hit this one just right. A few thoughts about this one. Continue reading

So part of the fun of homebrewing is being an advocate for the craft. Sharing the process, sharing the results, and sharing knowledge is always important. My buddy Sully has enjoyed many of my homebrews across the years. I love getting Sully’s opinions on my beers. Sully has always stated he wanted to try brewing. He has gotten some kits in the past, but never brewed them. On a “normal” poker night, when we didn’t have poker, Sully and I decided to get our brew on. Not only was it a first time for him, but it was also MY first time brewing in the great outdoors, aka Sully’s patio. Continue reading

Back in the Fall, I was on the Making Dad With Chip and Zach. After they tasted my Too Hot Mama, Zach quickly fired out a challenge for my next beer, a cookies and cream beer. Challenge accepted. For my first attempt at this challenge, I chose to whip up a “quick” 3 gallon batch. I did this while NOT watching the State of the Union Address, but rather made my own State of the BREWnion address. While steeping the grains, I watched a little Moonshiners on DVR and drank some tasty suds. Continue reading

Today is a brew “maintenance” day. It is these days during homebrewing that make you wish you could speed up time just a bit to get to the final product. Patience, patience, patience.

I added the first batch of hops for dry hopping the Lt. Topper, the first beer in my CLONE WARS series. It is a Heady Topper clone. I will let this first dry hopping of just short of 4 ounces of hops sit for a few days before I transfer it to the secondary and add even more hops. This beer smells wonderful. I have a few cans of Heady Topper off to the side to be able to do a comparison.

Today is also the first of two coconut toasting days. Today I am toasting 14 ounces of coconut to go into RISing Mounds, a chocolate coconut Russian Imperial stout. I will also make a new addition of some more Royal Dutch Chocolate and some Mayan cacao powder. This will all be at the bottom of the 6 gallon glass carboy when I rack it over shortly. I may have to sample a little wort during the transfer for both gravity sake, and taste. Oh yeah, and I will also add two vanilla beans soaking in bourbon….a little extra tastiness!

So the wife went out for a Girl’s Night Out…so I decided to brew once the boys went to bed. I made a yeast starter the night before. I invited over a good friend, Chris, to be an assistant brewer for this batch, and taste a little craft brew (READ – excuse to drink beer together).

Before Chris came over, I did some work ahead of time. I took a pound of oats, and toasted it in the oven. About 15-20 minutes on a bar pan gave it a slightly darker color, and a little more toasty flavor. I tossed that into a muslin bag. I also added the pound and a half of other crushed grains I had for the recipe into another bag. I steeped these for about 70 minutes. I used my new big pot for it’s second brew. I love this pot because of the internal basket. It leaves about 3 inches of space between the basket and the pot, so there really isn’t a way to scorch your grains. I got a nice dark color, and a little bit of oatie goodness in there, and it was time to ramp up the flame.

For the main brew, I remove the basket, as it is no longer needed. Chris showed up just after I added almost 3 pounds of dark dried malt extract, and was in the process of adding the first 6 Continue reading

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